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CAS Hondas Billy MacKenzie retains fourth in MX1 Championship with solid performance at Agueda

In Offroad

29 aprile 2008

After an abundance of rain and mud in Spain, the sunny skies and baking hot temperatures at Agueda made the Portuguese Grand Prix a much more pleasurable experience for everyone involved at round three of the FIM MX1 World Motocross Championship. As well as the conditions improving so did the performances of the CAS Honda and Honda Martin team riders with Billy MacKenzie, Mike Brown and Marc De Reuver all able to pack themselves into the top 10 of the overall results while Julien Bill suffered and struggled all day with an injured finger.

Sebastien Pourcel was the overall winner in the MX1 class this weekend with a 2-1 scorecard, the Frenchman also set the fastest lap during Saturday’s timed practice session. Pourcel didn’t have it all his own way during qualifying though as both De Reuver and MacKenzie sat in pole position for a while before Pourcel set an even faster lap in the dying seconds of the 30-minute session. MacKenzie finally finished second, De Reuver fifth, Brown 18th and Bill 20th.

Under sunny skies on Sunday, it was Spaniard Jonathan Barragan who took the holeshot in moto one but a charging MacKenzie soon took over the lead before a dose of arm pump ruined the Scotsman’s concentration and caused him to make a string of small mistakes. Billy slipped to fourth at the finish while De Reuver came home in seventh after setting consistently fast lap times throughout the 35-minute plus two lap moto. Brown was ninth with Bill 11th - by far their best results of the season so far.

Moto two saw De Reuver and Brown head the pack into the first but it was the reigning MX1 World Champion Steve Ramon who came out of it with the lead. MacKenzie was near the front of the pack and soon fought through to second where he tailed the Belgian for one lap before making a move for the lead then trying to forge a gap. Stretching his lead to as much as five seconds at one point MacKenzie unfortunately made an unforced error on lap 14 when he looked in full control. He crashed and remounted in fourth place.

Meanwhile MacKenzie’s CAS Honda teammate Mike Brown was charging hard and had moved from eighth place to sixth before passing MacKenzie – who had also lost a position to Josh Coppins - for fifth with three laps to go. De Reuver had been as high as sixth place in the middle section of the moto but slipped to eighth after losing out in a battle with Barragan. Bill DNFed when the pain from his finger became too much.

MacKenzie who is Honda’s highest points scorer in the MX1 championship now holds fourth place in the series standings with 79 points to the 102 of championship leader David Philippaerts. Brown holds 12th place on 42. De Reuver is 14th for the Martin Honda team while Bill who has a torrid season so far is 25th.

The world championship takes a one-week break continuing in Sevlievo for the Grand Prix of Bulgaria on May 11.

Roger Harvey – Honda Off-Road coordinator: “Starting with the CAS team first and Billy MacKenzie. He’s shown that he’s got the speed but he’s still making little mistakes and we can’t accept that because he’s now able to win GPs anywhere but keeps making silly mistakes like the one he made in the second race today. His speed is really good – I’m very pleased with that – and the bike seems to be working well and he’s happy with the bike, we’ve just got to iron out those little slips.

“Mike had a good day today. He struggled coming into the weekend, starting in free training then got it together. He made some changes to the bike between qualifying yesterday and this morning’s warm-up session and they worked very well, he got more and more comfortable and was charging, charging, charging right through the race – typical Mike really.”

“Moving over to the Martin team and Marc De Reuver was not so bad. He showed he’s got the speed but his conditioning isn’t there probably because he missed some time at the beginning of the season but there’s no point making excuses – he’s got to get fitter.”

“Julien Bill had a thorn in his hand and he said couldn’t hold on but that’s no excuse – he should have just got on with it.”

”The performance of the CRF450s – both the CAS and Martin bikes – is something I’m really pleased with and all the riders were up there off the starts so that’s a good sign.”

Billy MacKenzie – CAS Honda: “All day yesterday was really good for me. The weather was really hot and it was important to stay hydrated because I knew race day was going to be tough. My times were good in all the sessions, I’d put a really fast lap in and be fasted then Pourcel would put an even quicker one in at the end of the session, I wasn’t really too bothered. The same happened in qualifying and I thought I had it in the bag but he came and did it again. Second was good enough and I was pleased with the way I was riding and I was riding a lot smoother than the other guys – I could see they were really hanging it out to get a good time – but I was conserving my energy for the races.”

“In the first race I didn’t get off to a great start – I had my finger on the clutch all the way up the start straight because there was so much grip and I was trying to keep the front end down. I went wide in the first corner then made a load of passes on the first lap and kept going from there and eventually did Philippaerts – I did everyone. I got into the lead and was pulling away from them all but lost a little bit of concentration and got a little bit of arm pump mid-race and started overshooting corners and making small mistakes. I ended up finishing fourth, it was okay but my second races are always a lot better so I was looking forward to that.”

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